The Sensei Philosophy: Recreating the Learning Cycle with AI Coaching

Published on: September 3, 2025

Most chess apps analyze positions. Sensei coaches people. Our philosophy is simple: lasting improvement comes from completing a learning cycle—not from isolated stats, one-off lessons, or random puzzle grinding.

Sensei rebuilds that cycle—experience → reflection → concepts → experimentation—into a modern, AI-powered workflow that meets you where you are and guides your next step.

♻️ The Learning Cycle, Simplified

Great coaches (in chess and beyond) reinforce four stages:

1. Step 1: Play a Game (Concrete Experience) — This is the fun part! You play chess games online, just like you normally would. Every game you play is a new experience, a story with a beginning, middle, and end. You’ll win some and lose some, and each one provides the raw material for learning.
2. Step 2: Review Your Game (Reflective Observation) — After the game, you look back at what happened. Think of it like watching the replay of a sports match. You’re not just looking at who won, but how they won. What were the key moments? Where did you make a great move? Where did things go wrong? This is where you start asking "Why?"
3. Step 3: Find the Lesson (Abstract Conceptualization) — This is where you connect the dots. Maybe you noticed that you keep getting into trouble when your king is exposed. The lesson, or "concept," is "king safety is important." You turn a specific mistake from one game into a general rule you can use in any game.
4. Step 4: Try It Out (Active Experimentation) — Now, you take that new rule and consciously try to apply it. In your next few games, you might focus specifically on keeping your king safe. This is like practicing a new skill. At first, it feels deliberate, but soon it becomes second nature. Then the cycle begins again with your next game!

🧭 How Sensei Recreates the Cycle with AI

1) Play Games → Concrete Experience

Link Chess.com or Lichess and just play. Sensei ingests your games automatically—no uploads needed.

2) Game Insights → Reflective Observation

After each game, Sensei surfaces crucial positions, accuracy by phase (opening/middlegame/endgame), repeated mistakes, and model examples—so reflection is focused, not overwhelming.

3) Audio Coaching & Goals → Abstract Concepts

Weekly audio summaries translate patterns into coaching principles, aligned to your selected goals (tactics, positional play, openings, middlegame, endgame). Concepts become memorable—and actionable.

4) Chess Canvas & Drills → Active Experimentation

Test ideas in the Sensei Chess Canvas: explore lines, ask questions in natural language, and rehearse responses. It’s the “practice with your coach” moment—on demand.

🔁 A Typical Week with Sensei

• Play Your Usual Games: Just connect your online chess account and play as you normally would. Whether you enjoy fast-paced blitz or slower classical games, Sensei works in the background to gather your games for review. No need to manually upload anything!
• Check Your Game Insights: After a game, Sensei automatically highlights the most important moments. Instead of getting lost in endless computer analysis, you’ll see the 3-5 key moves that decided the outcome. It’s like having a coach point out exactly where the game was won or lost.
• Listen to Your 2-Minute Audio Summary: Once a week, Sensei sends you a short, personalized audio lesson. It identifies a recurring pattern in your games—like a mistake you keep making or a strength you can build on—and gives you a clear, memorable tip. It’s perfect for listening on the go and helps the ideas stick.
• Practice in the Chess Canvas: This is your personal training ground. You can take a position from one of your games and explore different possibilities. What if you had moved your knight instead of your bishop? The Canvas lets you experiment without pressure, helping you build the confidence to make better moves in your next real game.
• Repeat the Cycle: Each week, you’ll repeat this process of playing, reflecting, and practicing. Over time, you’ll notice that you stop making the same old mistakes and start spotting opportunities more quickly. Your intuition gets sharper, and your game gets stronger.

🔊🖼️⌨️ Why Multi-Modal Coaching Works

People learn differently. Sensei combines visual boards, written insights, and audio coaching so concepts stick. You don’t just “know” a tactic—you recognize it faster and convert more games.

• See It Clearly (Visual Insights): A chess game can feel chaotic. Sensei’s visual board and insights cut through the noise. We show you the exact moments that mattered, turning a complex game into a few simple, understandable lessons.
• Hear It and Remember It (Audio Coaching): Reading about a concept is one thing, but hearing it explained makes it stick. Our audio summaries are like having a coach in your ear, reinforcing key ideas so you remember them when it counts—during a game.
• Do It Yourself (Interactive Practice): The Chess Canvas is where knowledge becomes skill. It closes the gap between understanding a concept (“I get it”) and being able to execute it under pressure (“I can do it”). It’s the hands-on practice that builds real confidence.

🎯 What This Means for Your Chess

• Stop Making the Same Mistakes: Sensei helps you spot the blunders you make over and over again. By understanding why you make them, you can finally break the habit and build a more solid, reliable game. You’ll also start to recognize common tactical patterns much faster.
• Know What to Do When Nothing Is Happening: It’s easy to know what to do when there’s an obvious tactic on the board. But what about those quiet, strategic moments? Sensei helps you understand the deeper principles of chess, so you can create a good plan even when there’s no immediate attack.
• See Real, Measurable Improvement: You choose what you want to work on—maybe it’s improving your endgame skills or learning a new opening. Sensei tailors its coaching to your goals and shows you how you’re progressing over time. No more guessing if you’re actually getting better!

🚀 Start Completing the Cycle

• Step 1: Link Your Chess Accounts: Securely connect your Chess.com or Lichess account in seconds. Sensei will automatically and privately import your games to begin the analysis.
• Step 2: Choose Your Focus: Tell Sensei what you want to improve on. Do you want to get better at tactics, understand strategy, or master the endgame? Pick up to three goals to guide your coaching.
• Step 3: Play and Learn: That's it! Just play games as you normally would. Sensei will handle the rest, delivering insights, audio summaries, and practice positions to help you improve with every game.

Get started at SenseiChess.com and turn every game into growth.